Talk:Elgin Theater

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Remembrances (unsigned and undated (pre-June 2015; probably circa 2009))[edit]

I was a Chelsea resident as a kid in the 60's & 70's, having gone to the elementary school closet to the Elgin to the north (ps11) and the Jr high closest to the south (IS70)

Two pertinent points overlooked in the article on the Elgin are: rampant pot smoking -midnight shows or otherwise - I frequently left showings of planet of the apes movies with a "contact high" just from sitting in the balcony

And...after we succeeded in protesting against the "adult" theater period of it's history, but long before it's evolution into the "Joyce" theater, it briefly became an early (post Max's Kansas city)punk rock venue, sporting a GIANT paper mache and cloth figure of a "punk rocker" with red light bulbs for eyes.

I never saw any acts there, but I recall (VIVIDLY) a poster for Blondie, and I recall promo materials on display for what appeared to be a "kiss"-type band called (if memory serves) "Kong".

I recall hearing a couple of years later tha blondie did not appear due to being nookrd on the same bill as some other female fronted band with whom Blondie was "feuding" though this was at best hearsay.

A good online resource to corroborate this info (the punk venue part at least) might be Chris Stein of "Blondie". He has a blog.

--- This web site confirms that Blondie was scheduled to appear at the Elgin but did not http://archive.blondie.net/gig_list.php KR26740 (talk) 02:00, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More remembrances[edit]

I, too, was a kid in Chelsea in the 60's and 70's, and I remember the Elgin vividly. This article, I am sorry to say, hardly does justice to the place's importance in the artistic life of New York City or in the life of the neighborhood which it served. At its peak, the Elgin was a major showcase for classic vintage cinema. The daytime and evening shows, I would argue, were at least as important as the midnight shows. The Elgin was one of the first places where the complete works of Buster Keaton, rediscovered and re-released by Raymond Rohauer, were shown to the general public. The films of Harry Langdon, a great and underappreciated silent comic in the same class as Lloyd, Chaplin, and Keaton, were also shown there. The Elgin specialized in week-long or weekend-long revivals of classic 20's, 30's, and 40's films, usually focused on a single star. I remember the comedy festivals best: Laurel and Hardy, Keaton, Fields, and the Marx Brothers. Classic dramas and foreign films were shown, too; I remember seeing many of Humphrey Bogart's movies there, as well as the original (and still the best) version of "King Kong."

The prints were always of high quality, and I learned at the Elgin that black, white, and gray could be even more beautiful than color. Between pictures, the Elgin's sound system played the songs of Billie Holiday, which served as my introduction to jazz. The tickets were remarkably cheap, and my sister and I could spend the whole afternoon in the theater and see two movies for relatively little money. The theater itself was beautiful, both inside and outside.

In many ways, the Elgin was my education in the art of the movies; it gave me standards of comparison that I have retained to this day. The Elgin was a very important part of Chelsea, a little beacon of culture and fun at a time when the city was declining and needed both. I miss it, and I miss the old neighborhood, too.Zeppo1959 (talk) 23:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]